


Ghost Town

by owlaholic68



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Language, Minor Character(s), Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-14 11:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15387546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: Ghosts walk the Mojave. Wandering spirits, bound to one place or another, always suffering and searching for rest.Most don't know they're there, but the Courier does.





	1. ED-E

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, I'm basing ghosts in this AU on the way spectres work in the roleplaying game Urban Shadows (if anyone listens to TAZ, that's the Dust arc). Ghosts can be seen, heard, or felt, and can only do two at a time. But while ghosts in the game can choose, I'm not letting anyone (with two exceptions) choose. So in this chapter, for example, ED-E can be heard and felt, but not seen. There's also something tying each ghost to the mortal world, not letting them move on. 
> 
> Normal people can't hardly sense ghosts at all, maybe just getting a flash of something, a voice on the wind, or a brush of someone moving against them. Lynn can see them (or hear them or feel them, whatever) quite clearly. 
> 
> Hope that makes sense!

When Lynn took a bullet to the head, a lot of stuff got knocked around in there. She has difficulty balancing early in the morning. Her mood can swing from happy to cripplingly anxious in a second.  Her left hand spasms at inopportune times. Most of her memories from before this cursed delivery are inaccessible.

She remembers her name. She remembers that she had family out West somewhere, but they’re dead now. Her whole world feels like it’s a half a step to the left of what it should be. There is no touchstone, no bedrock of normalcy, only scraps of what she thinks her life used to be like. She doesn’t think it used to be like this, but she’s not sure.

Has she always seen ghosts?

They’re here now, at the corners of her vision. The first one she sees is in Doc Mitchell’s house, a young man sitting on the examination table next to hers. Lynn thinks it’s an illusion, or a hallucination, and she doesn’t mention it, keeping the man in one corner of her eye.

Then, the echo of a laugh in the old schoolhouse. Great. Now she’s hearing things too. It’s time to move on. She doesn’t linger up in the graveyard, afraid now that she’s going to start seeing things. Instead, she jogs down the hill and onto the road south out of Goodsprings. The lights of Primm are visible even from this distance, so she walks, keeping to an even slow pace. Her head is still spinning a little from the no doubt deep trauma she had sustained.

She thinks the bobbing light approaching her is a hallucination too, until it gets closer. There’s a Brahmin and a woman walking in front of it, the shaky light a lantern on a stick suspended from the Brahmin’s back.

Both figures don’t look real. There’s something spectral and almost see-through about them, like gently flickering lights in the corner of her eye. Lynn rubs her eyes and takes off her glasses. To her surprise, she can see them more clearly this way. Everything else around is her is a fuzzy blur, but the woman and the Brahmin are brighter, more solid. When she puts her glasses back on, they stay that way.

Staying close to the side of the road, Lynn edges away from the strange duo, keeping her eyes on them. She wants to get out of here and figure out why she’s having such vivid visions. She needs to find a doctor, one with a brain scan machine or something.

The woman turns and looks right at her. “What, woman, you too shy to say hello to an old caravaner?”

Lynn squeaks and jumps a foot in the air. “Sorry! I didn’t think you were real! I thought I was imagining things!” She slumps. “Oh, this is all still probably a vision, isn’t it?”

“What?” The caravaner bursts into high-pitched laughter. “No? What the fuck? You used to having strange visions or something? I’m a ghost, haven’t you ever seen a ghost?”

“No,” Lynn shakes her head back and forth. “I just got shot in the head-”

The woman keeps laughing, now slapping her knee. The Brahmin, sensing her amusement, snorts. “Well, color me surprised that you ain’t a ghost yourself!” She settles down. “Well, the name’s Angie.”

“Uh, I’m Lynn? So you’re a ghost?” Lynn frowns.

“Yep.” Angie doesn’t seem to be too bothered by this. “There’s a lotta us folks in this wasteland. Don’t you be messin’ with them, now. Some are nice, but there are a few bastards out there. Now I’m gonna give you a few tips, since you seem new to all this and a mighty bit in shock. There are three ways to tell if you got a paranormal spectre on your hands: seein’ them, hearin’ them, or feelin’ them. Most dead folk that are still hanging around are a couple of these at a time, so there’ll be a lotta clues. Me, I can’t touch nothin’ except old Jane here, and that’s only cuz she died with me.” She nods at the Brahmin. “Any questions?”

This is a lot to take in. Lynn is also taking it all with a heavy grain of salt, and the suspicion that Doc Mitchell might not have done such a stellar job patching up her brain. “Yeah. Why are you a ghost, and not just dead?”

Angie shrugs. “Dunno. I’m stuck to something. Maybe it’s caravanning. Been doin’ it my whole life and now my afterlife too. Ghosts always got somethin’ tying them to this mortal world, and sometimes it ain’t physical.”

The Brahmin, Jane, huffs and starts walking. Jane glances back and forth between Lynn and the animal. “Well, I gotta go now! I’m heading up to Jacobstown, gonna hang out in the mountains a bit before swinging back down to the Strip. See ya around, Lynn!”

And with that, she leaves. Not walking away, she literally disappears, fading slowly away until just the light from the Brahmin can be seen.

Well. Lynn turns tail and runs for Primm.

* * *

“Can you tell me anything else about this other courier?” Lynn asks.

Johnson Nash shifts, uncomfortable, and looks to the side. He grabs a crystal he has hanging around his neck. “It’s hard to say. You believe in ghosts, Miss Lynn?”

She swallows hard. “I do since today. You’re saying this guy was a _ghost?”_

“I didn’t say nothing like that!” He protests. “He just wasn’t really there. Heard him and felt him tap on the paper, tap your name and say that you should be the one to deliver the package. But he was just kinda there. Hard to see what he looked like. I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

That sounds an awful lot like a ghost. “Have you ever seen,” she hesitates, realizing how crazy she’s going to sound, “have you ever seen or heard about a ghostly caravaner? Just a light travelling down the road?”

He rubs the crystal with his thumb. “Yeah. Folks coming from down south have mentioned seeing something out of the corners of their eyes, or of hearing a Brahmin bell in the distance.” He shivers. “If you’re looking into ghosts, you don’t have to look far. If you could do something about the one in our home right now, I’ll owe you.”

“In your home right now?” Lynn reflexively looks behind her, but all she sees is other casino inhabitants. “In the Mojave Express station?”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “It’s been driving me and Ruby wild. We can hear the thing beeping and once or twice she swears she’s felt something, but we can’t see the damn thing. We think-” He stops himself. “Nothing.”

She raises an eyebrow. “What? What do you think?”

Ruby Nash joins their conversation. “My husband is too superstitious. Some fella brought in a smashed-up robot, a weird little scrap heap, and we trashed it, sent it along to a junkyard. Now some idiot,” she nudges her husband with a glare, “has gotten us all worked up about ghosts and hearing things.”

Johnson Nash folds his arms. “Whatever. If you can find anything, though, it would help. But you should probably take care of our little Powder Ganger problem first.”

Oh, but now the ghost question has gotten her too worked up to focus on that. Lynn _has_ to find out what’s going on. She ducks out of the casino and into the Mojave Express building.

“Hello?” she calls out, feeling very stupid. She takes off her glasses and squints, but doesn’t see anything at first.

There! A flash of a shadow. Then another, like the fluorescent light reflecting off something metallic. She catches another couple of flashes. It’s something round and smallish, floating in the air just above the desk. She puts her glasses back on and can’t see it at all. Blindly, she puts her arms out in front of her and fumbles for it until her fingers hit smooth metal.

There’s a surprised beeping noise. The robot moves away.

“No, don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you!” She says, feeling for it again. “I’m just curious. What kind of robot are you?”

A cautious beeping, then the metal is in her hands. She runs her hands over the robot’s body. Her fingers snag on something raised. It feels like a license plate with some letters. “E,” she reads, tracing the letter. The next letter is clear, “D,” then there’s a dash, then another E. “ED-E,” she says, blending the letters together until it sounds like a name. “I didn’t know there could be robot ghosts. What are you still doing here, buddy?”

Sad beeping.

“I don’t know what that means. Do you want to come with me, I guess?”

Happy beeping. The tiny curls of hair on Lynn’s neck stick up as ED-E zooms behind her, then there’s a solid thump as he runs into the door.

Lynn laughs, the first time she’s so much as cracked a smile since she’d woken up with a few new holes in her head. “Watch it, bud, you can’t go through stuff.” She opens the door. “Now come on, we have a job to do.”

* * *

The recordings come as a surprise. They happen seemingly randomly, though the conversation that prompts them is always technology-related. “Enclave,” Arcade had said, spitting the word at the robot ghost like it was a curse. This “Enclave” seemed to have left these messages, and a wealth of other information, behind on the robot, and that information had gotten transferred to the ghost, somehow.

People look at Lynn funny when she listens to the recordings, standing still intently listening to something only she can really hear. Other people in the wasteland will sometimes hear a quiet beep, but they never properly hear ED-E like she does.

Which makes it all the more surprising when someone contacts her about ED-E. Two people, in fact. Brotherhood and Followers both want a piece of the action, though neither of them seem to understand that ED-E isn’t a real robot anymore.

But Lynn doesn’t trust the Brotherhood not to start experimenting with ED-E, so she takes him to the Followers.

“I heard your message,” she says, after locating April Martimer in the Old Mormon Fort. “I’m here about the robot.”

“Oh, wonderful!” She sets down her work and looks up at Lynn. “So where is it?”

Lynn promises herself that she will not chicken out of this conversation. “He’s here. He’s a ghost robot? I know that sounds wild, but trust me on this one. Uh, ED-E? Can you touch Doctor Martimer please?”

April jumps and yelps as ED-E, invisible to the human eye, bumps into her arm. She reaches for him and pokes her fingers around. “Fascinating. I’m not dreaming either.” She looks up at Lynn. “I believe I can still gain the information that the Followers need to help others.”

“Then do it. I trust you. ED-E, I’ll be back in a few days.”

It’s a long few days filled with other jobs for other people, running around Freeside and the Strip until a runner from the Followers finds her and says that April Martimer is asking for her, and right away.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” April says, frazzled, when Lynn runs into her lab. “I just got done, and he started, I don’t know, fizzing out.”

“ED-E?” Lynn feels around until she touches him. Fizzing out is a good description. She feels ED-E’s body, then nothing, then it’s back again, but weaker. He makes a beeping sound that could only be described as bittersweet. “You’re moving on, aren’t you? This was what was tying you here: you wanted to give your information to someone else and help.” An affirmative beep answers her, and even the sounds ED-E makes are growing harder and harder to hear. “Thank you for travelling with me,” she quickly says before he’s gone for good. “You were a wonderful companion and I was glad for your friendship. Goodbye-”

And ED-E is gone.


	2. Cass

There is a person here whose name is Ghost, but the real spectre is to be found in the barracks of the Mojave Outpost.

“Can I have a Sunset?” Lynn asks the bartender-slash-vendor, Lacey. She turns to a woman sitting on her right nursing a drink with her head down. “So what’s your story?”

The bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla shatters on the ground. Lacey gapes at Lynn.

That woman is gone, like she was never there. Another ghost. Lynn thumps her head on the table. Behind her, ED-E beeps comfortingly.

“You can see somethin’ there?” Lacey asks in a whisper.

“Yeah.” Lynn rubs her eyes and tries to look again, but she still doesn’t see anything. But she could have sworn that she saw that woman easily before. “A woman sitting here with a cowboy hat and red hair. She was nursing that drink.” The glass is still there.

Lacey swallows hard. “I keep that glass there from superstition, you see. Sometimes I see it move a little, or it gets empty again by the end of the day. Just thought it was my imagination. And no one ever sits in that seat, it feels wrong or something.” She briskly sweeps the glass fragments into a pile in the corner. “How about I get you something a little stronger than Sunset for your troubles. On the house. You look like you need it.”

Though Lynn’s not normally a drinker, she accepts. It’s been a long road south, and she’s bone-weary from clearing out all of those ants. ED-E had helped, with some weird laser that Lynn couldn’t believe still worked. Ghost lasers work on real creatures? Wild.

She needs some fresh air. Taking the bottle of beer with her, she heads out into the quiet Mojave night.

Somebody is waiting for her. The woman that she thought she had seen, leaning against a large crate with her arms folded. She’s glaring at Lynn.

“Hello?” Lynn says, approaching. “Um, this might be rude, but are you a ghost?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“Nothing, I’m just curious. My name is Lynn, and this is ED-E.” She gestures to the robot before realizing that this woman might not be able to see him.

“Hm. I’m Rose of Sharon Cassidy, but if you call me anything other than Cass I’ll haunt your ass all the way down the Long 15. Now what are you doing here talking to my sorry self, and why the hell can you see me?”

Lynn sits on one of the empty picnic tables. She’s going to look a little loony if someone catches her talking to nobody, but she doesn’t really care. “I’m still not used to seeing ghosts, and I just wanted to know who you were, I guess. What’s keeping you here, Cass? This seems like a shitty place to haunt.”

Cass barks a laugh. She steals Lynn’s beer. “That it is. Worst damn place.”

“Then why don’t you leave?” Lynn is secretly impressed with how strong Cass is. Most ghosts can’t be heard, felt, and seen all at the same time, but somehow she’s managing it. Her figure is barely flickering at all either. “Figure out what’s tethering you here, and get rid of it.”

“Oh, I know what it is,” she snarls, her temper flaring. “It’s the damn scraps of my caravan. Cassidy Caravans, the company my pa made into a success, torn down by a couple of fucking mercenaries. Fuck the Crimson Caravan Company and fuck the Van Graffs, they can rot in hell for what they did to me. I’m riding through the wastes on the way to the Strip, and next thing I know I’m dead as a doornail. I was drawn here. And it’s all because of the damn caravan registration they’ve got in the office, the only remaining record of my family’s legacy.”

Lynn stands. “That sounds pretty simple to get rid of. We can send you on your way here pretty quick-”

“Like hell you will. It’s all I’ve got left.”

“Yeah, and what’s it doing? Keeping you here miserable. Wouldn’t you rather travel free again, instead of moping around this sad shack they call an outpost?” Lynn’s a little tired and her voice is starting to turn sarcastic and acidic. “What the fuck is keeping you here, really?”

Cass, ashen face turning red, stands too. “Fucking fine! Do it! What the hell do I care! I hate this place and I _do_ just want to move on, maybe see my pa again! Let’s go.” She turns on her heel and strides towards the entrance to the main building. “We’ll burn that fucking record until it’s nothing but ash. Take that, fuckers.”

Major Knight seems a little bewildered as to why she would want the record of Cassidy Caravan, but he begrudgingly puts it on the desk for her.

The corner of it is set alight, then the whole thing bursts into flames. Major Knight gasps, and Lynn glares at Cass, who is invisible and has lit a match, holding it to the edge of the paper. Cass is the most obvious ghost ever. Couldn’t they have waited until they got outside?

“No, don’t put it out,” Lynn orders, and Major Knight sets down the bottle of water he’d grabbed. “It’s no big deal.”

The paper curls, then turns black and crumbles into ash. With it, the room exhales a sigh, and the edges of Cass’ form flicker. She turns to Lynn.

“Thank you,” she calmly says, a far cry from her usual temper. “I guess I really was just holding on to a whole lotta nothing this whole time. You stay safe out there, and if you see Alice McLafferty or Gloria Van Graff out there, you bring them to justice.”

Lynn, conscientious of several people watching her, simply nods. Cass gives her one last smile and a salute, then fades away. Lynn heaves a sigh and turns to Major Knight. “Here,” she says, putting a handful of caps on the table. “Buy yourself something to drink tonight. And do try to keep quiet about this, if you can. This was a delicate situation, you understand.”

He quickly nods and puts the money in his pocket, hands shaking. “I won’t tell anybody about this, I promise.”

But there’s no rest for Lynn, not yet. She shoulders her bag and double-checks her weapon, and hits the road again, bound for Vegas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, for those that are watching the rules I set out for ghosts at the beginning, Cass is one of the two exceptions that can be seen, felt, and heard all at the same time, and can control those powers as needed.


	3. Boone

Is there something up there? Lynn stops in the middle of the road and frowns, squinting up at the strangely-shaped sniper post. She had thought she had seen something, but maybe it was just the moonlight reflecting off the sniper’s gun. Snipers are supposed to be discreet, so he must have just ducked down when he saw Lynn looking.

Strange town. Strange giant dinosaur. Strange people, skittish and shifty in all the wrong ways. Lynn had left ED-E floating outside somewhere. Since she couldn’t see the little robot, she trusted him to find her instead of the other way around.

“So who’s the sniper up there right now?” Lynn asks, perusing the stock of weapons and ammunition in this weird little shop.

She thought that it was a pretty reasonable and casual question, but the shopkeeper in this store, Cliff Briscoe, jumps and looks at her with wide eyes. “We don’t have a night sniper,” he says, then clears his throat. He steadies his voice. “We don’t have a night sniper. Just a day one. There’s no one up there right now. Manny will be up there in two hours.”

What she saw must have been her imagination. Lynn shrugs. “Okay, thanks. I’m just going to pop up for a quick look, if that’s okay with you.”

She opens the door and almost hits someone. But Cliff just said that there was nobody up here-

The man turns and looks at her with soulless eyes. Lynn smothers a gasp and resists the urge to run screaming from the dinosaur building. Instead, she steps further into the sniper nest and closes the door behind her.

“Who are you?” She asks.

The man doesn’t speak. He’s kind of see-through in the way all ghosts are, but he’s clearer than most. He’s holding a gun that looks like a real gun, with ammo carefully stacked on the lip of the dinosaur behind him. There’s a beret with an unfamiliar logo on it, and the man has no hair under the hat. His eyes might have been another color once, but now they’re dark black, with thick streaks of what look like blood coming down from his eyes like tears.

“I’m Lynn,” she says. “Are you a sniper? What are you doing here?”

No answer. The man is getting increasingly agitated with her presence. But he must need _something._ There must be some reason he lingers here.

“What do you need?” She desperately asks, hand creeping towards the doorknob. This is starting to freak her out. “What can I help you with? What happened?”

He stops and looks at her, his eyes boring into her own. Then he huffs and reaches for something in his pocket, handing her a key with a tag that says 1C. Then he turns and raises his rifle, poking it out the dinosaur’s teeth. A clear invitation to leave, and she takes it.

Cliff looks grimly at her when she jogs down the stairs.

“You used to have a night sniper, didn’t you?” She asks, breathless. “Who was he? How did he die?”

“Whoa,” he says, raising his hands. “I don’t know much about that. Manny knew Boone better. All I knew is they used to be NCR, then they settled down here. Boone’s wife Carla disappeared a little while ago, and him soon after.”

That’s apparently all of the information he has to offer. Lynn strides out the door and takes the steps down two at a time, jumping to the ground and scanning the motel rooms for the correct one. 1C. The key fits and Lynn slips inside the room before anyone sees her.

It’s empty save for a bed, a dresser, and a couch. Everything is covered with a hefty layer of dust. Some shelves in the back hold nothing of note, but there are some folded dresses next to plain jeans and t-shirts. So two people _did_ live here once. But what happened to Carla? And was that related to what happened to Boone?

She thinks her search is fruitless until, feeling under the bed, she touches a loose floorboard. Underneath it is a journal. The writing is stocky and doesn’t say much. Most of the journal is empty, save for a few pages at the end, dated November 14, 2280. A little under a year ago.

_They took Carla. I don’t know who did, but someone sold her to the Legion, and I’m not going to rest until she’s back, even if I have to go to Hell for it._

That’s the last entry. Lynn solemnly closes the journal and puts it back. It seems as if he did. As she closes the journal, a sentence on another page sticks out: _I never spoke much before Carla. And I don’t much now either._ An accurate description of him after death too.

So someone sold Boone’s wife, he tried to save her and paid the ultimate price, and now he’s stuck haunting the top of the dinosaur. But who? Who would do something like that?

Her instinct is telling her to go outside. There’s no use poking around in any of the motel rooms, but maybe the person running the office might have some information.

The office is empty. Every scrap of intuition is telling Lynn that this is her chance. Her chance to do what? She circles the desk and spies a safe underneath it. But she’s not here to steal. But she _is_ here to investigate. And there’s no harm done if she picks the lock, doesn’t find what she’s looking for, and locks it back up again. It’s not stealing if she doesn’t take anything.

Whoever runs this place might be coming back soon. She needs to work fast. One bobby pin breaks because of a violent spasm in her left hand, but her second try is successful. She digs through papers and pouches full of caps, until she finds a stiff piece of paper. A bill of sale.

She skims it and puts her hand over her mouth. This is making her sick. She can’t look at this. The piece of paper gets hastily shoved into her bag, and the safe re-locked. She’s out the door and up to the sniper post, breezing past a confused Cliff.

The specter, Boone, regards her with impatience in his empty eyes. She shoves the paper in his hands. He stares at it, then up at her. He nods. When Lynn doesn’t immediately understand what he wants, he picks up his rifle and grips it tight.

“You want revenge. You want to kill her.”

He nods.

If this is what it’ll take to help him move on, Lynn’s all for it. This woman, this Jeannie May Crawford, deserves to face the consequences of her actions. Boone takes an identical copy of his beret and plops it on her head, askew and smushing down her hair. He points at it, then at a boulder in front of the sniper post.

The plan is ready to be put into action, and they have less than an hour to pull it off.

“I just thought I saw something weird,” Lynn says, leading Jeannie May towards where Boone is waiting. “You should probably check it out.”

They’re standing on the boulder. “Something weird?” Jeannie May asks, leaning forward and squinting. “Are you talking about the crack on the thermometer? I’m getting that looked at soon-”

Lynn takes off the beret and wrings it between her hands, avoiding looking down at the corpse at her feet. She looks up to the sniper post and sees Boone. As she walks back up this time, she nods at Cliff before slipping into the sniper post.

Boone looks less corporeal now. He refuses the beret that Lynn tries to give back. Quiet in life, he is quiet in death too.

With a pained smile, he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boone: seen and felt, but not heard, not that he has much to say anyways. 
> 
> Next chapter: the personal quest is not the answer, but maybe a small unmarked quest will hold the key to setting this person free...


	4. Veronica

“Did you see her up there?” The Forecaster asks, though it’s less of a question and more of a challenge. Lynn had already paid for the Forecast for “Everywhere”, so this was a little extra.

Lynn settles back on her heels. “I thought I saw something, but I wasn’t sure. Do you know who she is?”

This odd child rocks back and forth with a grin. “A girl, smiling, sad, brown robe, named Veronica. Half here, half on the other side. You saw her. She is there. She is like your friend. She will _be_ your friend.”

“Thank you,” Lynn says, thinking. Another passing spirit, like ED-E, who needed guidance in some way, maybe even friendship. Those thoughts still swirling around in her head, she heads back up to the top of the 188 Trading Post.

The woman, the ghost, Veronica, is still standing in the same spot. Her elbows are on the railing and she’s gazing towards the West. Lynn does the same trick she’s done dozens of times now, taking off her glasses and properly looking at the ghost head-on, then putting her glasses back on. It helps calibrate her eyes, or something. Hell if she knows. It just works.

Lynn leans against the railing too. “Veronica?” She quietly says.

Veronica startles, whirling to look around herself. She points at herself, staring at Lynn.

There’s something very endearing about that. Lynn smiles and nods at her. “What are you doing here?” She asks.

No answer. Veronica appears to be moving her mouth at a million miles a minute, but Lynn doesn’t hear any noise. Angie, the ghost caravaner, had mentioned that she couldn’t touch things. ED-E couldn’t be seen. Maybe Veronica couldn’t make any noise?

Quickly, Lynn waves at her to stop trying to talk. “I can’t hear you,” she murmurs, still staring mostly straight ahead. “But I see you just fine. Do you know what’s tying you to this place?”

Veronica fishes out a necklace from her clothing. No, not a necklace: a pair of holographic dog tags. She shows it, then points at it with an intense look on her face.

“This is what you’re bound to,” Lynn guesses. “Do you need any help moving on?” At Veronica’s unsure shrug, Lynn suggests, “you can always come with me if you want. I wouldn’t mind having another companion.”

She grins and pumps her fist. She’s wearing a power fist on her arm. Lynn wonders if she could actually fight like ED-E can, and files away the thought for later reflection.

“Let’s go, then,” Lynn says, resigning herself to another ghostly companion. Can her life be normal for a second?

* * *

Veronica is wonderful to travel with. She’s upbeat and has a great sense of humor, something Lynn can tell even with their communication barrier. Her playful attitude during combat raises Lynn’s spirits, and seeing her duck and weave between enemies, landing skilled hits, is a sight to treasure.

This situation they’re in right now is a little too stressful to appreciate that right now, though. Lynn focuses on keeping the small packs of Nighstalkers off of Veronica while avoiding getting bitten herself. Rex is doing his best distracting enemies, and Arcade is off somewhere up ahead scouting for what they need to find. Lynn wishes that she’d asked Doctor Henry more questions about this quest: an “easy mission, just grab some stuff, no big deal”, yeah right. He didn’t really mention the _invisible_ Nightstalkers.

That’s why it takes Lynn a second, after wiping blood from her arm, to realize that Veronica has frozen, staring down at the dead Nightstalkers with horror in her eyes, her hands around her throat.

“Are you okay?” Lynn asks, using a Stimpack. Veronica doesn’t seem to be injured, but she’s breathing quickly. She looks up at Lynn, then down at the Nightstalker, then back up again. Veronica slowly drags one finger across her own neck. “This is how you died. You were killed by Nightstalkers.” Veronica’s neck is hidden in the shadows of her hood, which is probably a blessing. “Do you want to go wait outside? We can handle it from here.”

Veronica nods and turns tail out of the cave. Lynn turns back to Rex, who is sitting on the cave floor staring up at them. She gives him a smile and wishes for the millionth time she could touch him to pet him. Even ghost dogs deserve pets, and even ghost women deserve hugs.

* * *

Ghosts can be pretty insistent about what they want. Lynn is peeking through the scope of her rifle at the mountain above them, trying to figure out the best path up, when Veronica tugs at her sleeve. It’s just the two of them right now.

“What?” Lynn turns to look at her. Veronica grabs her arm and points just to the side of the road they’re following north out of Sloan. There’s a fenced-in area that doesn’t look like it has anything in it. “Do you want to go in there?” Veronica nods and leads Lynn inside. They pass a handful of bunkers dug into the ground, but don’t stop until they get to one with a little more graffiti on it. “Here? Do you want to go inside?” Another enthusiastic nod.

The bunker is dusty and quiet, and Lynn wonders what’s in here. She crosses the room to an intercom that Veronica is tapping away at and silently speaking into. She gets frustrated and gestures for Lynn to try.

“Uh, hello?” Lynn says, racking her brain for something to say. Is this related to the dead patrol she had found last week? Veronica had seemed to want to say a lot about that too. “I found one of your holotapes, I think. It says there’s a password: Live to fight another day. My, uh, companion asked me to come here?”

The doors start sliding open. Veronica gestures for Lynn to put her arms up to her shoulders as three heavily armed soldiers circle them. “How did you find that password?” One of them demands, taking Lynn’s arm. The other one relieves her of her weapons. The last one grabs Lynn’s other arm and starts towing her up a set of stairs.

Lynn glances over her shoulder, mildly panicking, and sees Veronica silently raging, stomping after them. While she stammers out an explanation to Paladin Ramos, the head of security, there’s a rustling on the side of the room. A chest flies open and a drained energy cell smacks the Paladin in the chest.

“Hey-” He yells, confused. Another piece of ammo is thrown at the doorway to a small office, then again on the desk. The terminal on the desk boots up. Lynn can see Veronica tapping at the keys. “A gh-ghost?” Ramos stutters.

“Yeah.” Lynn nods at the room. “You’d better go see what she has to say. Veronica gets mighty impatient when she’s ignored.”

“Veronica?” Ramos gasps and runs into the room, staring down at the computer. “But she – we heard reports-” He pauses as a line of text comes across the screen. “Yeah, Ramos, I’m dead as shit,” he reads. “Now let my friend in and take us to McNamara, or I’ll haunt your ass and trip you in front of everyone.”

The terminal shuts off. Ramos straightens. He’s pale and sweating. “Let’s go,” he says, nodding to the two guards holding Lynn. “You heard the woman. We take them to the Elder.”

Behind Ramos’ back, Veronica shoots Lynn a double thumbs up. For her part, though, Lynn kind of wishes that they could just leave now, please? This super high-tech bunker is cool and all, but Lynn’s getting a little uncomfortable with all of the people staring at her and the armed guard escort.

“What is the meaning of this?” A man who must be Elder McNamara asks, sitting at a desk in a large circular room. He glares at Ramos. “I do not appreciate superstitious unfounded messages, Paladin. Why have you allowed this outsider in?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Ramos says. Lynn stays silent until she’s called on to speak. “But Veronica vouched for her. She insisted.”

“Veronica?” McNamara stands. “But we heard-”

“And we heard correctly. But it appears that she is still…with us, in a way.”

McNamara glares at Lynn. “Outsider, explain.”

“My name is Lynn. I found Veronica up north at the 188 Trading Post. People there can confirm that she perished there during a Nightstalker attack, but her soul is still bound to this mortal realm, and she continues to aid me in my own travels. She asked me to come here. Or, well, she,” Lynn rubs the back of her neck, “she cannot be heard, unfortunately, but I can see her, and she can interact with the physical world. It’s complicated.”

McNamara is saying something, likely discounting her opinion, but Lynn’s attention is caught by Veronica, who has come over to stand in front of her. Veronica puts two hands on her chest and Lynn shivers. Veronica is mouthing something, slowly.

Lynn has never been good at reading lips, and her confusion must show in her face. Veronica sees that she doesn’t understand, and tries a different tactic. She taps her own chest, then Lynn’s, then mimes diving into something. She’s asking if she can do something.

Her concentration is broken when the guards grab Lynn’s arm again. Veronica’s expression hardens and she starts looking desperate. Lynn quickly nods. “Do it,” she whispers.

“What?” McNamara frowns at her. “What did you say?”

But Lynn doesn’t answer, because it feels like something’s just kicked her in the chest. She staggers and coughs, the room blurring in front of her.

Then Lynn’s body speaks. “McNamara,” her mouth says, though it’s like she’s watching herself say it. The voice coming out of her mouth isn’t her own. “Could you not go all paranoid for two seconds and actually listen for once?”

“Veronica?” McNamara stands, staring at Lynn, at not-Lynn. “Is that – how-”

“I’m dead and I’m a ghost now, didn’t Lynn here already explain that?” Lynn’s body takes a step forward. “And I’m here because all of you, as I’ve said time and time again, need to change your ways. Please, Elder. We’ve talked about this before. Just listen this time.”

His previously shocked expression closes off. “No. You’re right, we _did_ talk about this. And you know that that sort of talk will only bring us problems. I think maybe it’s not so unfortunate that you have lost the ability to be heard. It’s time to give it a rest, Veronica. Let it go. Our ways work for us.” He nods at the guards. “I have nothing more to say to you, Veronica. I’m willing to listen if you have something more substantial than baseless accusations.”

A burning anger builds unnaturally in Lynn’s chest. “Veronica,” she grits, momentarily taking control for a moment. Her head is aching and her vision is flashing double. “Stop it, you’re hurting me-”

“-never listen, cowards-” Veronica is working herself up into a relentless fury, and it is starting to prickle in Lynn’s stomach like a million Cazador stingers.

With an immense effort, she wrenches Veronica out of her body and returns to herself, kneeling on the floor gasping. A few feet away, she sees Veronica, flickering in and out of her vision. “Didn’t know you could possess people,” she whispers.

Veronica mouths _sorry_ over and over again, struggling to pull herself up too. Apparently the effort taken to take control of a body took a lot out of her.

Elder McNamara is staring at Lynn as she pulls herself to her feet. “Sorry about that, sir,” she says. “If you don’t mind, I think our conversation here is done.”

“I think you’re correct.” He draws himself up, regaining his air of authority. “If Veronica trusts you not to divulge the secret of our location here, I have no choice but to trust you as well. Return in a day,” he rubs his temples, “and I may have a mission that you would be uniquely qualified for.” He waves at the door. “Now please leave. Veronica too.”

* * *

“What now?” Lynn asks when they’ve stopped to camp for the night. Veronica is sitting by the fire, the flickering light casting weird shadows inside her ghostly form. Rex is laying a little ways away from the light, head on his paws.

Veronica shrugs. “Do you want to try again to convince them?” Lynn asks. “We can try to find some kind of proof to show Elder McNamara.” Another shrug. “Well, let me know if you think of something.” Veronica nods and turns her head up to look at the stars.

* * *

A bobbing light meets them on the road back to Vegas.

“Hey, Angie!” Lynn runs forward to meet the ghostly caravaner. Rex barks and runs towards her, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he jumps around the little caravan. Veronica follows at a slower pace.

“Oh, if it isn’t my little ghost-seein’ friend!” Angie warmly greets her. “You’ve gotta few new friends there, Lynn.”

“This is Veronica and Rex,” she says, introducing each of her friends.

“Hey there, Veronica you said your name was? You wanna take a look at some of my wares?”

Lynn’s eyebrows shoot up. “You actually sell stuff?”

“To other ghosts, I do.” Angie laughs. “What d’ya think I’m doing out here, caravanning for my own delight?”

Rex sits at Lynn’s feet and rubs up and through her leg. Veronica is staring at something on the Brahmin’s back, reaching out to touch it with reverent fingers.

“You like that dress? It’s real soft. Here, try it on.”

Lynn hastily turns her back until Angie, with a soft chuckle, says she can look again. Lynn gasps. “Veronica, that’s,” she’s at a loss for words, “beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

If Veronica’s cheeks were flesh instead of semi-transparent ghostly matter, she would be blushing. She runs her hands over the fabric and twirls, the skirt swirling out like a blooming flower.

“What do you want for it?” Lynn demands. “How can I pay you for this? You probably don’t take caps.”

“That I don’t, that I don’t. I take something a mighty bit more valuable.” Angie looks Lynn in the eyes thoughtfully. “A lil’ piece of happiness, to keep my spirits up on the road. How about a dance. It would do me awful good to see my wares put to use.”

“A dance?” Lynn is secretly relieved it’s not a piece of her soul or the promise of her firstborn or something like that. “Alright, Veronica, let’s dance. Uh, music?”

Angie digs in the Brahmin’s pack and pulls out a music box. It starts playing a haunted-sounding (no pun intended) waltz. In the dead of night on an empty wasteland road, it makes Lynn shiver. But the dance. Right. She steps forward and puts one hand on Veronica’s shoulder, their other hands linking together.

Touching a ghost feels weird. There’s some part of Lynn’s brain that knows that Veronica isn’t really there, and is always trying to grapple with the fact that she’s touching a ghost. But Veronica’s hand also feels so very real, so very cold and solid in her own.

Awkwardly at first, they start to dance. First a simple sway back and forth, then adding more steps until they’re waltzing. Lynn spins Veronica out for a twirl under her arm, and Veronica silently laughs in delight. Her spectral dress floats out as Lynn pulls her back in for a dip. As Lynn pulls her back up, Veronica’s face inches from her own, she’s close enough to see the full-body flicker that runs through Veronica’s body. Her whole form statics out, just for a second, then it’s back.

All this time, Lynn had thought that Veronica needed to accomplish some grand mission to be able to move on. The goal of changing the Brotherhood’s ways, of pushing up this rock that would never budge. But maybe all she needed was to dance with someone, to be a little happy and carefree.

Lynn’s crying, fogging up her glasses, but she doesn’t dare take a hand off the woman in her arms to wipe her cheeks. She only has moments left with Veronica, and she doesn’t want to waste them. Another twirl, then she’s bringing Veronica’s fading body close to her own, letting go of Veronica’s hand and throwing both arms around her waist, picking her up and spinning her around like she could keep her here from pure force and emotion.

The last notes of the music box fade, and the last memory of Veronica that Lynn has is a twirl of skirts, a laugh in her ear, and then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCRin095-Lc) is the song. 
> 
> I think there's a small chance that in the game, the 188 post can be attacked by Nightstalkers, and that Veronica can die? I remember reading something vaguely like that before. 
> 
> I was going to have Veronica's resolution be her (main) personal quest, but:  
> a. that's really long  
> b. I've never felt that she really gets closure from that quest
> 
> It is extremely difficult for ghosts to possess people, and there are some pretty serious moral-ethical implications to doing it. 
> 
> Next chapter: a very good boy.


	5. Rex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mention of animal death.

“You can go in now,” Pacer says, grumpily holding the door for Lynn. He leans in to whisper something to her. “And if he starts talkin’ about the dog, just entertain him. He was really sad when it died, and hasn’t gotten over it yet, keeps going on about seein’ it everywhere.”

Interesting. Lynn nods and enters the King’s audience chamber – slash – stage performance space. She stops in front of the King’s chair and gives a friendly smile. “Hello, my name is Lynn. I came to speak to you on behalf of Julie Farkas over at the Old Mormon Fort-”

Something jumps at her, threatening to bowl her over. Lynn yelps, jumping backwards as a big dog leaps at her. But the dog passes right through her with a chilling rush of wind that she’s come to associate with ghosts.

“Down, Rex!” The King admonishes. “How many times have I told you not to jump on guests?”

A few of the Kings in the corner wince and look at each other with sympathy clear in their eyes. But Lynn knows that their leader hasn’t gone mad from grief, or whatever they think.

“He’s a good dog, he just got a little excited,” she says, taking off her glasses to see the ghost better, then putting them back on. “Whoa, is that a cyberdog?” She’d heard about them from…somewhere (damn her faulty memory), but she’d never seen one in person.

The King’s head snaps up. “You can see him too?” He asks, hopeful. “Of course you can, you saw him jumpin’ at ya. Pacer pretends like I’m not goin’ crazy, but I know what he really thinks.”

Lynn sits at whistles at Rex, who barks and circles her, curious. “I have a special knack for seeing things that others don’t. You said his name was Rex? I’m sorry to ask, but what happened to him?”

“It was just a week or two ago.” The King’s shoulders slump. He rubs a bracelet on his left wrist, which upon a second glance is actually a dog collar. “There was somethin’ wrong with his brain, he was gettin’ too old or somethin’, and the Followers said they couldn’t do nothin’ for him.” He tries to scratch behind Rex’s ears, but his hand goes through the dog. “He died in my arms in his sleep. Not painful at all. But still he’s here, ain’t he? Somethin’s still wrong with him. And somethin’s wrong with me, that I can’t move on either.”

This is not how Lynn expected the Kings’ leader to act. She had heard that they were a gang, she had heard that they were rough and tough and that their leader was the roughest and toughest of all. But here is this guy, tearing up over his dead dog and clinging to his ghost.

“I can help with both problems,” she suggests. “I could take him with me on my travels. He’s certainly not suffering due to a lack of love, that’s for sure. But outside, he could run around and have some fun chasing enemies. Having some space might help you move on. Although, of course, if you do still have problems, I’ve heard that Doctor Usanagi has trained counselors on staff over at the North Clinic.”

“Take him, take him,” the King says, taking the bracelet off his wrist and handing it to her. “Let him have some fun runnin’ around, runnin’ free in a field, chasing Molerats…”

And that’s her cue to leave before he starts crying. Lynn stands and puts the bracelet on her own wrist. “I’ll be swinging around in a few weeks if you want to see him again then. I can come back tomorrow to talk about what I actually came here about.” She dares to pat the King’s shoulder on her way out. “I’ll give him a good afterlife, don’t you worry.” She whistles. “Come on, Rex. We’ve got some adventures to have.”

* * *

Lynn wakes up early to a spectral tail thumping through her leg. Eyes still closed, she winces. It’s uncomfortable like someone is poking her but stopping right before they touch her skin, over and over. She’s freezing, and pulls the blanket more tightly over herself. The blankets in her Atomic Wrangler room weren’t that thick.

What the hell is Rex doing up so early? Ghosts don’t need to sleep, but the dog apparently can’t understand that, so he still curls up next to Lynn on the bed or ground every night. This tail-thumping is much more enthusiastic than the lazy motions the dog makes while sleeping.

She cracks her eyes open to the sound of a quiet “ruff”, then an “awoo”. Rex is nuzzled in Arcade’s lap, getting a well-deserved petting. Arcade is silently cooing to him, his spectral fingers scratching the fur of this half-robotic mostly-dead dog.

“Arcade? When did you get here?” Lynn asks, resigning herself to being fully awake. She sits up and yawns. Rex takes notice of her and has apparently had enough petting, because he gets up and starts jumping on the bed, lavishing Lynn’s face with unfelt licks of his tongue. Ugh, that feels really weird.

Arcade stands and flickers, turning invisible for a moment before reappearing. “An hour ago. I heard you were back in town.” He opens his mouth to say something else, but flickers again, staticking out like a malfunctioning hologram. Lynn has long since learned that, unlike other ghosts, this is not a sign of anything more than Arcade’s relative instability. “I’m getting restless here. The boredom is driving me up the wall. Where are you headed next?”

“Nellis Air Force Base,” Lynn says, trying to push Rex off her before forgetting she can’t. “It’s going to be dangerous, and I might need a doctor to help patch me up, if you can manage.”

“I’d be _thrilled_ to go on another suicide mission with you,” he retorts. “Rex, get off her. Let’s go play fetch outside.” He flickers and grabs the doorknob, giving Lynn a wave over his shoulder.

* * *

Rex can’t physically attack enemies, but he does his best, jumping around them and barking, often distracting them long enough for Lynn or someone else to get a shot in. He stands above her now as she lies on the desert floor, coughing up blood. He’s barking and howling, panicked.

“It’s fine, Rexie,” Lynn says between gritted teeth, stabbing a Stimpack into her leg. She rolls onto her side. “I’m fine.” Another Stimpack to her hip, then she starts wrapping her ribs.

Rex might not be real or alive, but having him around is a hundred times better than being alone.

* * *

It happens unexpectedly, in a long stretch of empty land on the edge of Lake Mead. Rex is alternating between splashing in the water and running out to shake himself off, though technically he never got wet in the first place.

Lynn is strolling along behind him, letting the dog have his fun in the water. Rex runs into a big wave and is knocked backwards, his mouth hanging open and an expression of absolute bliss in his eyes.

He statics out, his tail first, the wagging stuttering like an old-style flipbook animation gone wrong. Then it’s his ears next, one of them flopping around and the other one fading away. Lynn silently gasps. She watches on the rocky beach as Rex gives her one last bark before turning and running down the beach, slowly fading away.

“He was a good dog,” Lynn says to herself. She turns and walks back towards Camp Golf in silence.


	6. Raul

“Damn radio’s on the fritz again,” Jas Wilkins complains, thumping it with her fist as her other hand stirs a pot. “And you just fixed up that generator too.”

Behind Jas, Lynn can see Veronica poke at a strange pile of meat, wrinkling her nose. She privately decides to eat dinner on the road tonight. “I can take a look at it,” she offers. “Might just be something busted but easy to fix.”

The radio is screaming static, but as she grabs it, she thinks she hears a voice. The static abates, and she definitely hears something that time. “What station is this tuned to?” She asks.

“The only one we can get in,” Jas grumbles. “The weird shit from up on the mountain. Some weirdo woman talking to herself all day. But they play decent music, at least.”

Lynn tunes her Pip-Boy radio to the station, and catches what sounds like a female supermutant talking to somebody that does just sound like herself but with a different voice. Then another voice, deeper and more masculine, offers a comment, but it’s undercut with static.

Across the room, Veronica looks up and raises her eyebrows. She grabs Lynn’s Pip-Boy and holds it close to her ear, frowning in concentration. She nods. It’s a ghost.

* * *

This isn’t even Lynn’s responsibility. She could always just turn around and go home, wherever home would be. But, looking down at the path she just snuck past, crammed with super mutants and Nightkin around every bend in the road, it would probably be more difficult to turn back now.

Even though this isn’t her responsibility, it still feels like it is. Most people don’t know these ghosts are here. They need help moving on. They need to not be lonely, they need to be noticed and acknowledged, even for a few minutes.

Which is why she finds herself wrist-deep in the casing of a robot, fumbling until she finds an ON switch. She flips it, fully expecting nothing to happen. Usually, she stumbles her way through something until she finally gets it right.

But this robot whirrs to life, chirping out a greeting. Veronica circles it, inspecting the robot as it leads Lynn to the door, where a large Nightkin is waiting. Lynn watches in disbelief as they walk off into the sunset together, leaving the entire radio complex empty.

Well. That was…

The ghost. Right. They came up here to look for someone. Lynn searches the main radio building without success, and double-checks the storage room that she had _thought_ was the main building. All that’s left is a small shed-like structure to the side.

As soon as she steps inside, the hairs on her arm stand up. She’s on the right track. Lynn digs through terminal entries until she finds something interesting:

_I tried to escape again today, and Tabitha was not so merciful this time. That, or she was too far gone to realize that I had stopped breathing, that I – focus. It’s best not to think about things like that. Either way, she still thinks I’m alive. Awesome. And I still can’t leave. Wonderful. If anyone reading this wants to steal my good adjustable wrench, the code to the door is 123456789. Like it did me any good before._

A faint clicking noise is heard, and Lynn looks over to see Veronica already tapping out the code into the nearby terminal. The door swings open.

“Hello?” Lynn calls out. “Uh, are there any ghosts here? We heard you on the radio.” She winces. Was that too weird of a thing to just say?

“Ghosts?” A raspy voice replies. “No, just ghouls.”

Lynn peeks around the door and sees a flash of a person sitting in a chair, their feet propped up on the desk. Like ED-E, she can barely see them, even when she takes her glasses off and squints.

“Uh, sorry if this is rude, but I can see that you’re a ghost?” She replies. “What’s your name? I’m Lynn, and this is Veronica.” Veronica waves.

“I’m Raul, and I think you’re mistaken, boss. No ghosts here, no Ma’am. You’re just seeing things.”

“Uh-huh.” Lynn gives Raul a look, where she thinks his face would be. “Then why’d the terminal outside say you died?”

There’s a pause. “That’s fair. So, uh, what’s up? What’s hanging, boss?”

“Nothing much. Do you want to, um, leave?” Lynn points her thumb at the open door.

Raul shrugs, like all the air in the room turned over and settled. “Nah. Don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Okay.” Lynn rubs her forehead, her fingers brushing the bullet scar there. “Okay, fine. I’m going to leave the door open anyways. You can come out whenever you want.”

“Thanks for the unconditional support. I’m bi.”

“Great. So am I, but you know well that that’s not what I meant. I’ll be out by the radio tower.”

Lynn thinks that Raul won’t join her, but after five minutes of leaning on the railing looking down at the distant lights of Goodsprings, he does. It’s just the two of them, Veronica poking around in the storage room. She’d been restless, listless, ever since their visit with the Brotherhood the previous day.

“I don’t know why I’m still here, boss,” Raul admits, a flicker of a shadow in the corner of her eye. He had said he was a ghoul, and implied that he was a mechanic from his terminals, so Lynn tries to imagine what he looks like. “I’m not sure what I should do now, or where I should go.”

“You could travel with me,” Lynn offers. “You any good at fighting?”

“Nah, not really.”

“You said you were a mechanic-”

She gets the feeling of a shrug in return. “I’m afraid I’m not the best at that either, on account of my old bones.”

“You could just…move on, then. What’s keeping you here?”

“What’s keeping me here…” Raul sighs, and a breeze tickles the back of Lynn’s neck. “I don’t know, boss. Memories. Regrets. I’ve made too many mistakes in my life, done the wrong things when I should have done the right.”

“We all have.” Lynn’s not sure what she’s referring to when she says that, but it still feels true. “Every single person has done things they’re not proud of. All you can do is move on and try to be better.”

Raul is silent for almost ten minutes, and only the feeling of a shoulder brushing her own reminds Lynn that he’s still there. “Maybe you’re right,” he quietly says, his voice raspy. It skips like a scratched-up holotape, and he starts to feel less real. “Maybe I should tell you my sad story, but maybe it’s just all left in the past too.”

He touches Lynn’s shoulder, a real-feeling hand. “Maybe that’s just what I needed to hear. Make sure you remember that too, Lynn.”

When he’s gone, Lynn feels sad, then takes a deep breath. It’d be stupid to ignore the advice that he gave her mere minutes ago. She turns at the feeling of someone behind her, and finds Veronica outlined by the light of the radio control room. Night is falling, and they need to get down this mountain.

They need to move on.

“Let’s go,” Lynn says, linking Veronica’s semi-solid arm with her own. “We’ve got places to go, people to save.”


	7. Lily

“Are you…sure about this?” Arcade crosses his arms and frowns at the settlement down the road.

Lynn checks to make sure Rex and Veronica are still following them down this forested mountain road. Rex is sniffing at the base of a tree, but Veronica is still skipping along at her side. “This is where Judah said Henry was last. Listen, I’m not thrilled to be going into a town full of super mutants, but apparently it’s safe.”

“Hmph. If you say so.”

Despite their concerns, though, Jacobstown is perfectly safe. And not even _suspiciously_ safe, just normal safe.

“Doctor Henry can be found in the main building,” Marcus, the leader of this town, says. He points to the right side of the lodge. “It’s the lab room to the right. Be careful, though, because he can be a bit…cankerous.”

There’s a ghost of a laugh from Arcade. Rex is already running towards the meager lake. Veronica tugs on Lynn’s sleeve and points towards an enclosure on the left with a Bighorner. There’s something vaguely there, large and tottering between the overgrown grass. A ghost?

“Thank you,” Lynn says to Marcus. It’s usually best to ask about these things right away if Lynn notices. “I have to ask, do you have any spooky problems? Noises heard at night?”

Marcus snorts. “Yeah, all the time. Nightkin are very superstitious. They’ve all but designated half of the lodge haunted, because such-and-such cup moved one time when they weren’t looking, or they feel cold…” He sobers. “But there is one, maybe. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts.”

“Well, I do. Lay it on me.”

“Her name was Lily. She was the sweetest Nightkin woman you’d ever meet, always looking out for the others, though because of her dementia, she usually just thought they were her grandchildren. She took care of the Bighorners, and sometimes…” Marcus trails off. “It sounds silly, but sometimes our last one still acts like she’s there, acts like someone is petting her or feeding her, when nobody is there. Stares at things.” He shivers. “If you want to know more about Lily, you’d be best off talking to Doctor Henry about it,” Marcus says, and refuses to elaborate on the subject.

* * *

Lynn doesn’t ask Doctor Henry first, since they have a lot to talk about already. She quietly corners his assistant Calamity in the corner of the lab.

“Lily?” Calamity’s shoulders slump. “Yeah, sweet woman. If we had known the true risk of our experiments…” She swallows hard. “Don’t bring it up with Henry. He doesn’t show it much, but he’s still torn up about it. And he may seem callous or cold about it, saying that it just put him back in his work, but he didn’t come out of his room for days after the…accident. I’d never seen him take a day off before. It was terrible.”

Lynn looks over her shoulder at Henry, who is hunched over some lab equipment. His movements seem jerky, frantic. Lynn nods.

* * *

“Jimmy dear!” An unfamiliar rough voice greets Lynn as she walks back to the gate, leaving the lodge behind. Lynn turns to see…something. Like a Nightkin if it was cloaked _really_ well. This must be Lily.

“Uh, hello, Lily?” Lynn carefully reaches out and touches Lily, but her hand goes through her shoulder.

“I heard you were going after those nasty Nightstalkers! I’m sure Doctor Henry mentioned that I’d be happy to help! Grandma desires revenge!”

Lynn winces. Their party is already big enough. “Well, maybe you should stay here to protect the Bighorners in case they attack again, Lily,” she suggests.

“Good idea!” Lily booms. “And please, dear, call me Grandma!”

“Okay…Grandma.”

* * *

“That is something,” Henry holds the chewed-up Stealth Boy an entire inch from his face, squinting at it. “But I don’t think it’s what we need.” He sets it down and runs a hand through his hair, several gray hairs coming out in the process, which he frowns at. “If only we could experiment further with the prototype Mark II, but,” he swallows hard and looks away, “we don’t have any willing volunteers.”

He looks tired. He looks disheartened, like all the work he’s been doing is for nothing. Even though he insists that his interest in solving the Nightkin’s problem was purely to have a reason to get up, he does seem to care about making progress and helping.

“Is there something else you could use?” Lynn suggests. She lacks formal scientific training in this field. “Would a first-generation supermutant work? Would a human brain be too different?”

“Yes, of course a human brain would be too difficult,” Henry snaps, getting irritated. “And the problem is particular to the Nightkin’s physiology.”

Arcade, who is leaning against the wall, taps on his chin. “What about a ghost brain?”

“What?” Henry looks back and forth between Lynn’s face and Arcade. “What did Arcade suggest?”

“No, Arcade,” Lynn tersely says. “I’m not even going to suggest that. You know what happened last time-”

“And it can’t happen again,” he argues. “I’m just saying, she was a willing volunteer the first time, and it’s not going to kill her again! And I think I can make a spectral copy of the prototype. We should at least ask her, Lynn. She wants to help, and she understands the risk better than anyone else.”

Lynn sits heavily and puts her head in her hands. Veronica puts an arm around her shoulder in a half hug. Lynn rubs her eyes and drags her fingers down her cheeks. “Fine, Arcade. Henry, do you believe in ghosts?”

“Of course I do. What are you suggesting-”

“I think I know of a willing volunteer for you, one that you’re already familiar with.”

Henry pales and looks out the window at the front of the lodge. He braces himself with one hand on the table, seemingly ready to collapse at the thought. “Well, there’s no harm in trying this time.”

* * *

It takes a lot of setup, and a lot of ghost-related jargon and complicated terminology that Lynn is in charge of relaying back and forth between all members of this ragtag scientific team. It’s complicated and she doesn’t really understand it all. Sure, she’s not terrible at science, but this is on an entirely different plane of research.

“Okay, we should be ready,” Arcade says, his voice crackling in and out of her hearing. From what she understood, this was a strain on him, and those sorts of reaches always risked him becoming even more unstable. Veronica was helping where she could, but she could only do so much.

“We’re ready,” she relays to Henry. Henry nods at Calamity, who hits a switch.

Doing a scientific test on a ghost was the last thing Lynn thought she would be doing today, but it works out. Calamity records the results, and they wrap up the test feeling accomplished.

“I think I can make significant progress with this,” Henry is saying as Arcade dispels the spectral Stealth Boy prototype. He looks reenergized, optimistic. “We should be able to-”

He looks to the side as heavy footsteps lumber into the room. Keene and two other Nightkin block the doorway.

“Doctor,” Keene growls.

Veronica is at Lynn’s side with her hand on her shoulder.

“Keene,” Henry warily answers.

“Well, well, we heard the rumor that you had a functioning Mark II prototype. Now, hand it over, and we’ll be on our way.”

“And if I don’t?”

Keene bares his teeth. “Then we’ll have a problem.”

Henry looks askance at Lynn, his eyes silently pleading for her to defuse the situation. Well, there’s no harm in trying.

“Keene.” Lynn steps forward, her arms held loosely at her side. This might turn ugly, but there’s no reason to look threatening. “Think about what you’re doing.”

“I have,” he retorts.

“Then you’ve surely considered what this display of force might mean for all of the other Nightkin in the wasteland. You’d realize that your reputation depends on you being patient until Henry can give you the completed cure.”

Keene looks between the humans (and ghoul) in the room with narrowed eyes. He huffs. “Fine.” He turns on his heel and leads the other Nightkin away.

The whole room breathes a sigh of relief, a cool breeze signaling that their ghostly friends were also very stressed out by that situation.

“What now?” Lynn asks, suppressing a shiver.

“Thanks to you, I think I can hand over the rest of the research to Calamity, if you agree.” She does. “As for the prototype, I don’t suppose it would be possible for Lily to continue wearing it?”

Veronica grabs Lynn’s sleeve and tugs. She points at Lily, who is flickering in and out of Lynn’s vision.

“Lily,” Lynn whispers, voice barely louder than a breath. “Lily – she’s moving on, Henry. I think she stuck around to help, but,” she swallows hard, “it’s time.”

Henry looks at the spot where Lily is still standing. “But she’s still here right now,” he says. “Can I say something to her?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you for helping,” Henry says, and the sincerity in his voice makes Lynn’s teeth ache. From the look on Arcade’s face, this is not a usual occurrence. “I only wished I could go back in time to fix what I had messed up, but if this is the way it is to be, then I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your help.”

There’s a whisper in the air of a raspy “you’re welcome”, then Lily is gone for good.

“Well.” Henry claps and breaks the silence. “Well, there’s no time to waste. Let’s get going, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh not my favorite chapter, but it is different.


	8. Arcade

“You can put all of your medical supplies in here,” Julie Farkas says, pointing out a tent on the right wall of the Old Mormon Fort. “Then on the left side are patient areas, if you need to visit anyone, and those two in the middle are quarters for the resident doctors.”

“What about the one in the corner?” Lynn points at a smaller tent that Julie hadn’t mentioned.

Julie has a strange reaction to the question. She starts nervously picking at a drooping hair on the back of her neck, suddenly unable to meet Lynn’s eyes. “Oh, you know, that’s where the researchers work. Don’t bother them, they’re kind of irritable.”

“Okay…” Lynn doesn’t feel like such an innocent question deserved that shifty of an answer. The explanation itself isn’t weird, but the way Julie said it was. But it’s not her business to pry, so she shrugs and moves on.

* * *

Did Julie say that it was the tent on her right or the corner tent to put medical supplies? Lynn frowns and looks between them, a small sack containing some herbs in one hand. Well, she’ll try the corner tent first.

She opens the flap and sticks her head in. She hears a soft yelp from the empty room.

“Hello?” she asks aloud, her ghost senses tingling, as stupid as that sounds. “Sorry, was this the research tent?”

There, a flash of light reflecting off of glass. Lynn frowns, reaching for her own glasses. “Hello? Are you a ghost?”

Apparently she can’t just go around asking invisible people if they’re ghosts, because the room screams and the tent flaps whip around. Oops. She beats a hasty retreat, calling out “sorry for disturbing you!” over her shoulder.

* * *

The Followers’ space at night is quiet and cool, dark except for lights on under the flaps of a few of the tents. Mostly the patient ones, but the “research” tent is still lit up too. “Research” here being code for “one-hundred-percent haunted, for sure”.

The main light in the courtyard comes from the campfire in the middle, where most of the Followers guards and medical personnel are circled around. One of the doctors is in the middle of a story about some expedition or whatever when the light in the “research” tent goes out, the flap fluttering in the wind.

“What’s up with that tent?” One of the younger guards asks, her voice high and reedy. “Why does nobody ever go in or out of it?”

The doctor telling the story shrugs. But it’s Beatrix who leans forward with a wicked grin on her face. “How long you been with the Followers, Donna? Two or three years? And you, Doctor Davis, only been here for four years?” Both of them nod.

There’s a soft _awoo_ from behind Lynn. Some of the people around the fire frown at the noise, but assume that it’s some Freeside dog. But that was a very distinctive sound that only came from one dog. Lynn pretends like she’s grabbing something from her bag, and turns to face Rex, who is sitting a little ways away from the fire.

“Well, this story comes from a little longer ago than that. Five or six years now, I reckon. I had just arrived here to start guard duty when I met him…”

There’s a strange man petting her ghost dog. A ghost man, spectral and flickering in and out of her vision. Lynn quickly takes off her glasses to see him better. Blond, lanky, with glasses that reflect the firelight.

“He was a researcher, kind of a weird guy. Real reclusive, hardly ever came out of his tent. Doctor Gannon, Arcade to his friends, of which he didn’t have a lot.”

The capital-g capital-m Ghost Man petting her ghost dog looks up when she mentions the name. He looks up and stares directly at Lynn, who is staring right at him. He jumps and looks around him before realizing that Lynn is actually looking _directly_ at him. Lynn nods her head at Beatrix, as if to ask, _is she talking about you?_ He nods.

“Well, one day he went out to visit his aunt to the north. Or was it the south? Whatever. It wasn’t a long trip,” Beatrix leans forward over the fire, “but he never came back. Killed by a Deathclaw, they say.”

Arcade has stopped petting Rex, earning a plaintive whine from the dog, and has moved to stand behind Beatrix, trailing his fingers across the backs of several people’s necks. They shiver. Arcade rolls his eyes, implying that her storytelling is less than accurate, then winks mischievously.

“The next day, people started hearing _noises_ coming from his old research tent. Voices, instruments clattering around, lights that would turn on and off. And sometimes, late at night,” Beatrix grins and Lynn, not caught up in the story like the others, sees that she has a rock in her hand, seemingly ready to chuck into the fire to disturb the embers and startle everyone at the right moment. “Late at night, it’s said that he can be seen coming out of his tent. If you look,” he voice darkens and the people around the campfire shiver, “you can see him. Right. Now.”

Everyone turns to look at the corner tent, right as Lynn sees Arcade slam his hands down on Beatrix’s shoulders. She shrieks and jumps, scaring everyone else. There’s a chorus of screams, but Lynn is too busy laughing, doubled over holding her stomach.

Arcade is laughing too, silent but with flashes of ghostly chuckles heard as he flickers in and out of her vision. Lynn discreetly gives him a thumbs up.

“Beatrix, don’t scream and scare us like that!” One of the doctors accuses. Some of the people around the fire are laughing now too, but others keep looking behind them like they think there _really_ is a ghost there. Which there is.

“Didn’t mean to,” Beatrix says, her ghoulish face even paler. “Something touched me, I swear.”

“Yeah, yeah, ghost story time is over,” Donna says, waving one hand. “Let’s go to bed.”

* * *

“Hey-” Lynn ducks to avoid a thrown clipboard. “Calm down, Arcade, it’s just me. Geez, you’re the rudest ghost I’ve ever met.”

Arcade is visible but difficult to consistently see, flittering all over her vision. Most of the time he’s fully visible to her, but once in a while he’s no more than a shimmer of light. Lynn gets the feeling that he’s much more unstable than other ghosts, but also that he can do more, much like Cass who she had met so long ago.

Right now, he’s frowning. “How can you see me?”

Lynn shrugs. “I don’t know. I got shot in the head and I’ve been able to see ghosts ever since. Beatrix said you used to be a researcher here, right? What happened?”

His face closes off. “Close to what she said. I was visiting my ‘aunt’ Daisy down in Novac, and on the way back I got ambushed by Fiends. I ended up here, eventually. Don’t know why, since I’m not really doing much to actually help.” He sighs, sending a rustle of bristling cold wind through the tent. “Who knew the afterlife could be so damn boring?”

“Can you leave?”

“Leave?” He shrugs, fiddling with a wilted stem of an herb. “I suppose. I don’t see any reason why I should, though.”

“You could come with me,” Lynn suggests. “I’m trying to, I guess, keep peace in the region? I’m not really sure. I’m figuring it out as I go and could really use some help on that front.”

Arcade’s eyes narrow. Contrary to the rest of his body which is all over the place, his sharp eyes are steady. “I guess you’ve done good enough work for us that I’ll consider it. What’s more, you’ve donated such a ridiculous amount of medicine that my work is becoming close to obsolete.” He stands and stretches. “Could you go tell Julie that I’ll be gone? She knows I’m here, sort of, and it would be better for her to not wonder where I’ve gone.”

“Sure thing. I’ll meet you out in front of the gate.”

Lynn corners Julie Farkas in the main tower of the old fort. “Julie, hi. I need to talk to you about something.”

“Of course, Lynn.” Julie shuffles a report she’s working on and gives her a warm smile. “What is it?”

“Uh, Arcade asked me to tell you-” Lynn reflexively catches the stack of papers as Julie drops them from surprise. “Sorry. He _did_ tell me that you were in the know-”

“Yeah,” she wipes her forehead, “sort of. It was so awful when he, he died, and I always meant to try and get another researcher, but he wouldn’t let me. Always raised a fuss when anyone other than me entered his tent. He does do some research still, I think,” her voice raises in an adorable sort of confusion, “but mostly he gets bored and writes weird messages on the walls or makes spooky noises at night. You said that he talked to you? You can see him? How?”

Lynn shrugs. “I don’t know. It only happened after I got shot in the head. Arcade is going to join me for a little while, and he didn’t want you to worry about where he’d gone.”

“Thank you for that, at least.” Julie waves at the door. “I’d like to see him off, though I can’t really _see_ him well.”

They walk into the shady courtyard. Julie sighs. “He always did have a flair for the dramatic,” she flatly says.

Lynn whistles in appreciation. The words STAY OUT have been written in a dark red ink (blood? She hopes not) over the entrance to Arcade’s tent. She sees Arcade sidle up to them, wiping his hands on his white lab coat, which doesn’t seem to stain at all. “Is that blood?” she whispers. Julie sharply looks over at her, then squints, trying to see Arcade.

“Of course not,” he retorts. “It’s honey mesquite root, powdered and added to Nuka-Cola. Looks like blood, but it will wash off eventually.”

Lynn rolls her eyes. “Why. Let’s just go.”

“Right behind you,” he says, hefting a ghostly pack on his back. He seems to stick to living rituals more than any other ghost she’s ever met. “Let’s hit the road.”

* * *

“Why aren’t there a lot of Pre-War ghosts?” Lynn asks as they circle the eastern edge of Searchlight and pick their way down the hilly road towards the river below. “A ton of people died, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any.”

“It all relates to how long a ghost can stay stable,” Arcade explains. He pulls out a thin-brimmed straw hat from seemingly nowhere, plopping it on his head. The rising sun is getting warmer and brighter. “The limit is a year, or two at most. Then, unless the specter has a really strong reason for staying, it becomes more and more difficult to hold onto the mortal world, and they either fade away or go wild, resulting in the more violent ghosts that scream in abandoned buildings. How old were the other ghosts you’ve encountered?”

“ED-E was only destroyed a month ago, I think,” she says, the recent memory of his passing-on stinging at her heart. “Cass was a couple of weeks, Boone less than a year, Rex a couple of weeks too, and Veronica even less than that.”

Lynn remembers a small detail, and turns to Arcade with a frown. “Wait. You’ve been dead for five years,” she accuses. “What’s up with you, then?”

He shrugs and his whole form shudders like a stiff wind had blown through him. “Oh, you know. I never said it was impossible.”

Evasive. Shifty, like he’s hiding something. “What’s keeping you here, then? You said it must be pretty strong.”

“Is that it, up ahead?” Arcade dodges the question, tipping back the brim of his spectral hat to look down at the camp below. Blood-red flags flutter and the mid-morning sun glints off metal. “Smaller than I thought.”

“Hey!” Lynn hisses as he trots on ahead. “You can’t avoid answering me forever!” With a sigh, she follows. “And don’t cause any trouble in there.”

He looks back, his face the picture of perfect innocence. “Who, me?”

* * *

Lynn exits Caesar’s tent to a scene of barely-contained chaos.

“I swear I felt something touch me, Sir,” a Legionary says, badly shaking. Another one keeps swatting at his neck like there’s something there. The dogs are going wild, barking at something only they can see. Some of them have been set loose and are running around chasing something invisible.

“Nonsense,” a more heavily decorated veteran is trying to keep order.

“But I heard something!” Another one protests. “Screaming, yelling about being strung up on a cross and how he’s going to get eternal revenge on our souls.”

“I heard it too, Sir, I swear on my life,” another one insists, pale and sweating. “And I saw something too, like a shadow.”

“I felt someone grab my leg.”

“I’m freezing,” another complains. “It’s the middle of a summer day, and I feel like it’s winter.”

Lynn pushes up her glasses to rub her eyes, then sighs and circles Caesar’s tent down to the hidden bunker. Halfway there, Arcade meets her, the sound of screaming following him from the front of the camp.

“Okay, so maybe you were taking a long time,” he confesses. “I get bored easily.”

“I’ll say,” she retorts, her voice low.

He waits until they’re alone in the hidden vault before speaking again. “So what did Caesar have to say? Go in, listen to what he had to say, then get the hell out, you said. So what did you find out?”

“That he’s got a lot going on. He explained his goals, and is asking me to do some things for him. I, of course, am doing the classic strategy of pretending to agree with him, getting out of here as soon as possible, and dealing with the consequences later. You with me?”

He grins. “Of course.”

* * *

“You still around, kid?” Angie leans against the left head of her Brahmin, petting it under the chin. “I thought you’d have moved on by now.”

“Nah,” Arcade says, looking intently at something that Angie is selling. “Hey, are these boots size twelve and a half?” He turns them over and looks at the sole. “Nice. What do you want for them?”

Angie crosses her arms. “What you got for me, kid? Other than an explanation of why you’re still hangin’ around too?”

He ignores her questioning and rummages inside one of his pockets. “I’ve got a star cap.”

“You’ve got a _what_ now?” Lynn frowns. “Hey, I could use that.”

He gives her a look. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he says, tossing it to her. It falls right through her hands. Right. Ghostly just like everything else he has. “I will give you this cap for these shoes.”

Angie squints and holds the star cap to her face. “It’s a deal.”

“Yes!” Arcade quickly changes into his new shoes. “Thanks, Angie. See you around.”

She waves a hand and leads her Brahmin away, until they’re only a ghostly bobbing light in the distance.

* * *

The explanation of Arcade’s past and what he’s doing here isn’t even that serious. Lynn doesn’t think it’s terrible or controversial or whatever he’s afraid of. 

“You were just a baby when everything with them happened,” she comments, keeping one eye on her Pip-Boy map. This cave is not very easy to find. “If anything, these people should be more worried than you are. The NCR or Brotherhood or whoever can’t kill you again.”

Arcade is eating a ghostly snack from his bag, munching between bits of conversation. It’s something he said helps him feel real, keeps him tethered more easily to the mortal world. “Still. I’m not about to go off telling my story to every stranger.”

“Do the others know that you’re a ghost?” Lynn asks. “I’m assuming they know you’re dead, of course.”

“Of course,” he echoes. “I’ve been able to communicate my presence to all of them to some extent, but most of them can’t really sense me. But you can mention me, and I’ll try to make myself known.” He gets quiet for a minute until they finally find the cave entrance. “Thank you for doing this. You don’t have to, you know.”

Lynn waves a hand, not commenting on how wildly his form is flickering out of control. “Nonsense. That’s what friends are for.”

* * *

“Cannibal” Johnson tries to throw his arms around Arcade and hug him, but misses by at least two feet. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you, kid,” he says. “Couldn’t hardly see you, but I knew you were there all the same.”

* * *

Lynn’s waiting outside the house when she hears a shotgun go off, and an alarmed yelp from Arcade.

“You all good?” She yells, readying herself to go to his aid if necessary. “Need help?”

“No, I’m fine!” he yells back. “The fuck, Moreno? You shot me!”

“Well, it’s your fault for popping in here and spookin’ me, son! Anyways, y’aint hurt, it went right through you, bein’ a ghost and all. Now come on, bring your friend in here and we’ll talk about whatever you’re tryin’ to drag me into.”

* * *

“Arcade’s with you?” Daisy squints and looks around. “Ah, my eyesight’s gettin’ terrible, I don’t have my readers on. Is he still as skinny as ever?”

Lynn laughs. She likes Daisy already. “Yeah.”

* * *

“You say Arcade’s with you?” Judah fully turns to face Lynn, abandoning his chess game. “Prove it.”

“What?” Lynn looks back and forth between him and Arcade, who has his arms crossed.

Eerily, Judah echoes the motion. “I can’t see him and I’m not about to trust the word of a complete stranger.”

Arcade gustily sighs. “There’s a good reason that Judah was the leader. He could think his way through a problem better than anyone else, and his intelligence kept us out of trouble. To be fair, he’s gotten a little more paranoid than normal. Tell him that he used to sing lullabies to me when I was a kid.”

Lynn dutifully repeats that, aware that Judah has been watching her stare at and listen to empty space.

“Alright,” he says. “What lullaby did I sing the most?”

Even though he’s half see-through, Arcade blushes. “You Are My Sunshine, because that was my nickname from everyone in the team: sunshine.”

“Hm.” Judah leans back in his chair. “It seems as if you’re telling the truth, young lady. What was it you came to me about, again?”

* * *

“No.”

“No?” Lynn echoes, her heart sinking. Their last recruit is not going to go so willingly.

Doctor Henry crosses his arms. That particular gesture seems to run in this makeshift family. “No. I’m not running off on some wild mission and leaving my work half-finished.” He glares to the side. “And get off my table, Arcade. How many times have I told you-”

“Hey!” Arcade hops off the table, indignant. “How can you tell-”

“And if he’s asking how I can tell,” Henry continues, apparently unable to properly hear Arcade, “I can see a bit of his shadow. That, and he was sitting up on my lab tables every five minutes when he was a kid.”

Arcade pouts. Behind them in the doorway, Veronica is silently laughing at him. They had left Rex outside with Marcus. “Tell him that everyone else has already agreed. Tell him it’s only going to take a couple of days, a week at most, then he can back to it-”

“And no reason you can come up with can sway me.” Henry says, as if anticipating opposition.

This is a particular brand of stubbornness that Lynn is intimately familiar with, having seen it in the mirror many times.

“Tell the old man that he should stop being so damn stubborn-”

Lynn cuts Arcade off with a look. She squares her shoulders and faces Henry. “You said you can’t leave your work unfinished. Maybe we can help you with that.”

To her surprise, a slow grin melts onto Henry’s face. “You know, perhaps you can.”

* * *

In the heat of planning, Arcade breaks away from the group, though Lynn is the only one who saw him leave. She follows, shivering as she passes through the large hangar where she almost had to make another ghost on this team, if not for her own powers of persuasion.

“Arcade!” She calls out. “Where are you going?”

“I have to go get something!” He replies. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours!” In his haste, he walks right through a wall, which Lynn has never seen him do before. If he’s stopped pretending like he’s still alive, something big must be going on.

But there’s nothing she can do now but wait. Instead of rejoining the others, who have the planning under control, she sits in the hangar, back against the wall. She stares up at the vertibird and feels alone. This was a private affair, so they had left Rex and Veronica back at the nearby Jacobstown.

Lynn doesn’t know the last time she’s been properly alone. Sure, the other Enclave Remnants are just behind the door, but they’re not friends. The thick wall blocks out all sound anyways.

There are no ghosts here. In most places, there’s at least something, a flash of a figure or the distant sound of ghostly howling. And even in unhaunted places, she always had friends. Dead friends, sure, but friends all the same. And even those aren’t going to stay forever. Everything has to move on, eventually.

She sits and stares up at the ceiling until she hears loud thumping bootsteps from outside. Leaning against the wall, she pulls herself to standing and walks outside, the setting sun back-lighting the scene.

“Arcade?” She calls out.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he replies, but his voice is incredibly clear and even. Lynn’s heart sinks as she approaches, a very bad feeling in her bones.

There’s a hulking set of sparking power armor, similar to the ones in the hangar. Arcade is standing next to it, fiddling with something in an arm joint before turning to face her. It’s shocking how stable he looks, how easily visible he is. He almost looks alive.

“This was my father’s,” he says, patting the power armor affectionately. “I have no more use for it now, I’m afraid. You should use it. You’ll need it.” He looks down at the ground, then back up at her with a smile. “Thank you, Lynn. Goodbye and good luck.”

“No!” Lynn starts forward as he fades away. She almost knocks him over from the force of her hug. He only has a few inches on her in height. He _feels_ alive too, solid and real.

“Don’t do that, now,” he chides, wrapping his arms around her anyways. “We’ve all got our time to move on, and I’ve waited long enough. It’s not sad, or scary, or even a bad thing.”

Lynn squeezes, knowing that what he says is true, but that it doesn’t stop her from feeling how she’s feeling. “Still…I’ll miss you.”

“And I’ll miss you too, of course. All of them in there will miss me. But,” he sighs and firmly separates from the hug, “but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s time. I can’t overstay my welcome much longer. I’ve done what I needed to do, thanks to you. You’re a force of nature when you want to be, Lynn.” He squeezes her shoulders and smiles. It’s a smile filled with sadness and acceptance. “Stay safe out there.”

Lynn nods and takes off her glasses to wipe at her eyes.

When she puts them back on, Arcade is gone.  Lynn is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can't just go around asking people if they're ghosts, Lynn...
> 
> There's probably going to be a week-long break after this before I do the DLC chapters, fyi.


End file.
